No Alternative: Day 4

Word Count: 24,003

Summary of Events:

Drake cried himself to sleep over the letter, upset that his parents would enrol him in anything without seeking his opinion on the school he might even want to attend, much less what program he wanted to participate in. The following day he met with his friends, who wanted to know why in the world he'd thanked his parents for the letter and resolved to help him get out of it, some way or another . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“It’s not like we can do anything to change where I’m going to school now,” Drake said. “It’s Sunday, nobody’s in any offices until Monday morning.”

“Um, probably not actually,” Calder said. “It is the Long Weekend after all.”

“So we can’t do anything until Tuesday,” Drake said. “So we can shoot the breeze if we really want to.”

“Websites are never closed,” Hayden said. “We could check out this school’s website and look into other aviation programs too if they don’t have one, and determine a plan of attack, who’s going to do what.”

“I don’t think you guys can do anything,” Drake replied. “I’m the one who was enrolled, I’m the one who has to get myself out.”

“Well we may not be able to call them, but surely we can help you with other stuff,” Hayden said. “Like researching other schools and summarising what they offer so you can choose which one you want to go to, stuff like that.”

“I guess,” Drake said.

“Don’t tell me you want to give in to them,” Hayden said.

“No,” Drake replied. “I’m getting to the end of my rope with them, especially watching this last year how they’ve treated Oriann, that just gets a rise out of me more than anything.”

“How do you mean?” Calder asked. “What are they doing with Oriann?”

“They’re not putting the same level of pressure on her they’ve put on me so far,” Drake replied. “She’s free to do whatever she wants with her life, even if they’re not paying her, they’re not constantly telling her that she has to think about the restaurant first and prepare for a future of working at the restaurant. She wants to go into fashion design and they’ve not once seemed perturbed at that, they let her talk about it and even tell other people about it while they go telling everyone I’m taking over the restaurant before I can even say something like ‘I don’t know’ just to be ambivalent.”

No Alternative: Day 3

Word Count: 18,028

Summary of Events:

Drake watched as his mom decorated the restaurant with dollar store decorations for his grad party disdainfully before going outside to chat with his friends, who'd only been invited because Drake had invited them. Once everyone had eaten Drake opened the grad presents, which culminated with a gift from his parents that was contained in a normal letter envelope . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Drake was puzzled. He’d expected a box or a gift bag containing some more of the kitsch that had been placed on the table next to the one he was at in which would be a gooey, sentimental card — wholly Mom’s doing — that would contain a cheque or a few dollar bills.

Dad took the envelope from Mom and very seriously handed it to Drake over Hayden’s head while Hayden cowered down close to the table, not wanting to get touched by Dad’s arm.

Feeling somewhat wary, Drake took the envelope and looked it all over.

Mom’s familiar hand spelled Drake roughly in the middle on the front side, the back flap was completely sealed — as Mom always did — which annoyed Drake, who honestly wished greeting card companies would only put a little dot of sealant on their cards, except that he knew a lot of people sent them through the mail, and thus wanted or needed to seal the whole thing.

Rhys produced a jackknife before Drake could even think of looking around for something to open the envelope with and Drake took it, sliding it into the small opening at the edge of the flap that all envelopes had, lest the things be completely impossible to open without damaging the contents.

The envelope open, Drake gave Rhys his knife back and drew out one single sheet of paper that was folded into neat thirds. It was printer paper, not lined paper, and when Drake lifted the top third he found it was printed with a letterhead from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.

Drake furrowed his brow and started reading the text underneath. Horror slowly constricted his stomach until Drake felt like it was the size of a pea as he read over the words of the letter, which was signed by the head of admissions for the school — which abbreviated its name to SAIT.

It was an acceptance letter telling him that he was enrolled in the autumn for a two-year program in cooking.

“What is it?” Calder whispered, looking concerned.

Drake pried his eyes from the letter and handed it over to Calder, who read it over, an expression of shock and upset coming over his face before he handed it off to Rhys, who reacted similarly, as did Hayden when he received the letter from Rhys.

“What?” Hayden asked. “This isn’t–”

Waving his hand low over the table, Drake looked at Hayden seriously and then looked up at Dad, who looked expectant and, it seemed, moderately smug.

“Thank you,” Drake said, trying not to choke on the words in spite of the fact that both rage and agony wanted to consume him. “I really appreciate this.”

No Alternative: Day 2

Word Count: 12,008

Summary of Events:

Drake got ready for his graduation, not that he was glad to be wearing the suit he was because he hadn't gotten the final say on it. Following the processional part all the students and their families went outside to a nearby park to snap pictures . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Standing off in the corner of the park, Drake watched as photos were snapped all over the place, not only by the photographers the school had hired for the event, but by parents, siblings, grandparents, and the like.

Drake had discreetly separated himself from the rest of his family so as to avoid as many pictures as possible, and he had to admit to a twinge of jealousy as he watched his friends participate in photos with their families.

Hayden’s family were all in a matching colour scheme that paired expertly with the school’s colours — his mom was an interior decorator, so the family always turned out in complimentary outfits.

Calder was wearing one of his many suits that he wore to games as was the expectation of all hockey players — especially in Canada — and was not only getting photos with his billet family with whom he’d lived since he’d first made the Blazers, but with his actual family, who’d come to town from Nanaimo for the occasion.

Drake had noticed that Calder’s sister — whom he knew from conversation was younger than Calder — was prettier in real life than in the Instagram pictures. 

Her hair was a lovely milk chocolate colour, and the slender-but-airy turquoise dress she was wearing made her blue eyes stand out brightly.

The dress had a halter top and a high waist before falling away into a long, fairly narrow skirt that only just hovered over the tops of the grass blades, exposing her feet to be clad in matching turquoise high-heeled sandals.

She looked pretty fit — which made sense, because Calder said his whole family was athletic; his dad had played baseball professionally, his mom had done skiing, his older brother was following his dad into baseball, and his sister, if Drake recalled correctly, was pursuing bobsledding in the winter and doing sprint-distance footraces in the summertime.

Rhys’ family stood out, as always, as he, his dad, and his brothers were all in cowboy hats that matched the western shirts, ties, and suit coats, plus the cowboy boots — complete with spurs — they were all wearing.

Drake’s family was — gratefully — lost in the crowd from Drake’s vantage, so he couldn’t see the rather mismatched group that they were with Dad in his dusty brown suit and red bowtie, Mom in black and white, Oriann in a grey maxi dress, Yolanda in a teal and white floral maxi dress, Urbane in black dress pants with a red plaid short-sleeved dress shirt and blue bowtie, and Quest in tan dress pants with a blue plaid short-sleeved dress shirt and yellow bowtie — the latter two both with the remnants of their pen drawings on their forearms.

“There you are!” Drake startled, ready to panic, at the exclamation until he realised to his relief that it was coming from Hayden. “Come on, let’s get some pictures together.”

No Alternative: Day 1

Word Count: 6,018

Summary of Events:

After school Drake arrived at the restaurant five minutes late and was lectured by his father, and during dinner service was ordered to cut vegetables when he was supposed to wait tables, which caused customers to have unnecessary delays in receiving their food — among other issues that occurred over the course of the evening. The following afternoon Drake hung out with his friends during a spare period at school and discussed a variety of topics, including how Drake wasn't allowed to do pretty much anything if it got in the way of his duty to the restaurant . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“Are you sure he’s going to let you go to school in September?” Hayden asked.

“He’ll probably expect me to go to cooking school,” Drake replied. “And if I can lead him to believe that until it’s too late for him to back out of the agreement then we’re fine.”

“That sounds difficult,” Rhys said. “Are you really sure you’ll be able to pull that sort of thing off?”

Drake sat up. “I certainly hope so, because I’m not going to actually go to cooking school.”

“Wouldn’t he be paying for it?” Hayden asked.

“College isn’t mandatory,” Drake replied. “He can’t force me to go into a program I don’t want to.”

“One would hope anyways,” Rhys said.

“It can’t be possible,” Drake scoffed. “That’d be like abuse.”

“If your dad’s so dedicated to the restaurant that it has priority over everything else in your entire family’s lives why would he let you learn about anything other than cooking?” Rhys asked. “You’d think he’d want all the help he can get seeing how short-staffed the kitchen is.”

“Just because he wants me to help with the restaurant doesn’t mean he can make me,” Drake said.

Rhys looked sceptical. “You’re not really going to have enough money to go to school on your own, surely he could put conditions on your money declaring that you won’t get any if you aren’t learning about cooking.”

“I can work my way through school if I have to,” Drake replied. “Anything to get out of that restaurant.”

Everyone slowly got to their feet as the bell rang.

“Would you be able to make enough money to work your way through college?” Rhys asked.

“I would think so,” Drake replied. “Even if I have to spread the course out over a longer period of time than it’s supposed to take, I’m okay with that, so long as it means that I can get out of that restaurant.”

“I’d be willing to donate to the cause once I’m making money,” Calder replied. “And I should hope that won’t be too far into the future.”

“You could probably just about pay for my whole education by yourself,” Drake said, holding the door open.

“Well I’m pretty sure if I’m making hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, that I’m going to have a decent-sized tax bill,” Calder said. “The drawbacks of being a millionaire.”

“Even still, ten or fifteen grand over two years isn’t that bad is it?” Drake asked. “And if you gift it to me you might even get deductions and not have to pay so much taxes.”

“That would be nice,” Calder said. “We’ll see what happens though.”

“Eggs can always get scrambled, after all,” Rhys said.

“Or they can not hatch at all,” Hayden agreed.

Drake nodded. He hoped that expecting his parents to pay his way through college wasn’t counting his chickens before they hatched. Why would his parents withhold money from him? He would get farther even in the cooking world if he had a degree in at least some facet of it.

August Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: No Alternative

Time Setting: 2019

Genre: Life

Minimum Word Goal: 90,000

Timespan: Late May–Early September

Location: Kamloops, British Columbia

Main Character: Drake Bradley

Background Information: 

The oldest of five children born to a chef and his baker wife, Drake has grown up around food and cooking, as his parents have both worked in the same restaurant for all his life.

His great-uncle ran the restaurant initially, but his love of good food and disdain for exercise caused him to die of a heart attack while Drake was still young; furthermore, his daughters weren’t interested in the restaurant, thus Drake’s father inherited the restaurant upon his death instead.

Since then, the restaurant hasn’t been doing the greatest. It still makes a profit, but the profit margin has shrunk every year. On top of that, the staff turnover rate as nearly doubled, as Drake’s father is very controlling — a behaviour fed by his uncle having considered him unable to do anything wrong and all of his ideas strokes of genius.

Although Drake learned how to cook at a young age and has always enjoyed good food, he’s never had an interest in the restaurant, but he knows better than to let that be clearly known to his parents because they expect him to take the restaurant over when they retire.

Drake, however, wants to become a pilot, and preferably a bush pilot flying people to remote locations throughout the BC Interior; in fact, seeing as one of his friends aspires to go into Search and Rescue, the two of them have plotted that maybe he would do the flying for the Search and Rescue team his friend would join.

To his parents, however, he is the dutiful son still learning more cooking skills from both parents — and receiving rave reviews from family and friends when they’re served his cooking — and working as a waiter at the restaurant on a regular shift, as well as in most any emergency situation.

Thankfully, though, the end is in sight. He’s graduating at the end of the school year and is looking forward to receiving some money from his parents toward secondary schooling, at which time he means to enrol in an aviation program and move onto living his own life and leaving the restaurant to be taken over by one of his younger siblings.

Game Changer: Day 15

Word Total: 90,022

Year to Date: 660,254

Summary of Events:

Hawk was trying to sabotage the other hackers' efforts to get into the Sons of Nahash's computers to buy himself time to edit the General Secretary's video when one of his sabotage devices went out of control and shorted out all the computers — as well as destroying the probe factory and the millions of probes Hawk had already made. The General Secretary discovered Hawk was behind it all and had him put into his fighter on autopilot as the leader of an attack against the Sons of Nahash. Hawk found the autopilot disengage switch had been removed and tried desperately to disengage it somehow so he wouldn't be killed . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Remembering another code — the one for the cockpit lights — Hawk punched it in and startled when the screen actually didn’t flash red.

Autopilot Disengaged, the green screen said before flashing up the data that had him hurtling toward the Sons of Chesil at five thousand kilometres an hour.

Immediately Hawk shifted the stick to pull up and turn away from the futile attack and the demise the General Secretary had plotted for him.

As he did so his craft shook and the screen flashed red, informing him that he’d been hit, and it wasn’t a minor strike either; in fact, Hawk quickly discovered that it was almost worse.

He wasn’t as close to Maarath as he’d thought, and it was his guess that the Sons of Chesil had broken orbit around it and were heading for Tamah, which loomed larger ahead of Hawk than he had expected.

The worst part, however, was that Hawk couldn’t steer at all; not up, down, left, or right, and his computer told him that his acceleration system had malfunctioned and was accelerating rapidly.

Hawk tried slamming his foot down on the decelerator, but the speed only continued to rise until he was going faster than he ever had gone before in his life, screaming toward Tamah with no way of avoiding the planet.

His accelerator hadn’t stopped accelerating by the time he ripped through Tamah’s atmosphere, which scorched the paint off of his craft, but somehow managed to leave it otherwise unscathed.

Finding his eject button still intact, Hawk pressed it, only to have an error code inform him that his eject mechanism had been locked and he needed to put in a code to deactivate the lock.

All of his codes had been changed, and he only had three tries or he would be dead.

Hawk’s heart pounded loudly enough to be heard over the scream of the air around his craft’s exterior.

He punched in the code it had been. Error.

The surface of Tamah raced toward him.

He punched in the code for the fuel jettison. Error.

Flames erupted from the engines, unable to handle the speed.

He punched the code it had been in reverse.

Suddenly Hawk found himself flailing through the air, very close to thick woods. He grabbed for his parachute ripcord. Nothing.

An explosion sounded and its force sent Hawk across the tops of the trees. His craft had made impact, but he had managed to escape alive.

After the brief interruption of the explosion shockwaves, Hawk resumed his downward descent into the trees, which tore and snatched at him, tossing him about between themselves.

A large branch slammed into his chest and stopped him for a split second before dropping him again to be flipped over by a branch to the ankles.

The last thing he remembered was the impact of a branch against his cheekbone.

Next Post: July 31.

Game Changer: Day 14

Word Count: 84,018

Summary of Events:

Hawk stayed in hiding at Tekla's residential unit for a few days while Tekla collected him a disguise of loose-fitting black clothes, contact lenses that made his eyes brown, and black dye for his hair before he went off to the Military Headquarters and started hacking away with the other assembled hackers — except that he wasn't trying to get into the Sons of Nahash's computers, he instead hacked an Emim probe manufacturer and started making lots of probes loaded with high explosives . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Once that was started Hawk shrunk that window and set it off in the corner where it would flicker or blink if his attention was required in its direction and then started searching for the video the hackers were working to send.

It took him a bit of work to find the video message that the General Secretary had recorded, but he finally succeeded and prepared to watch it.

Putting on some wireless earpieces that Tekla had gotten him, Hawk plugged their small antenna — which looked like little more than a large droplet of water when inserted — into the port.

An automated voice spoke, telling him that his earpieces were connected; he then selected to watch the video.

The video filled the screen and soon the General Secretary appeared, seated behind his desk, with his office looking rather grand and imposing behind him, his uniform looking perfect.

“Attention Sons of Chesil,” the General Secretary said, practically spitting the words out like bad food. “I am General Secretary Vedran Dzhugashvili of the Emim.”

He stared savagely for a moment.

“We have received your probe, your declaration of war,” he continued. “And we return it. All of our forces are mobilised, and we shall attack you until you are no longer, with not even a remnant to run away to Deep Space like cowards.”

An evil smirk lifted the General Secretary’s moustache on one end.

“It is regrettable that we did not finish you the first time,” he went on. “But where our forebears failed, we will succeed. You will suffer until you are annihilated, and then your names will be torn from the history books, wiped from the hard drives, and driven from our minds as the people who never existed.”

The General Secretary brought his hands up and clasped them just under his mouth, his smirk lifting into a smile.

“You have declared war on the wrong people,” he said. “You have declared war on the fiercest and most valiant warriors of the entire universe, and you will severely regret it, for we shall show you no mercy. Insolent wretches like you deserve none. May your death be agonising.”

With that, the video was finished.

Hawk was going to see about editing the video to see if he could change what it said almost entirely, but the shrunk window flickered, so Hawk enlarged it over top of the window he’d been looking at and saw that the factory had already finished fifty thousand probes loaded with high explosives.

Immediately Hawk ordered them to launch and sent their flight instructions before shrinking the window again and opening another window that he set up to show him live security footage near the factory, and he watched with pleasure as the explosive probes began their three-day journey to Maarath for the destruction of the Sons of Chesil.

Pronunciations:

Dzhugashvili: zhoogahshveelee